When taking blog photos, you should always aim to use the correct settings on your camera so you don’t need to edit once it’s uploaded.
Oh, okay. About that. Although I’m a lot better at using my camera than I was a year go, I’m not a professional photographer.
I’m just a girl living in England, where it’s sunny one minute and raining the next. I’m at a constant battle with natural light, rain, and dark, wintery evenings. So fuck that no editing shit. Sometimes it’s gotta be done.
Until about a year ago, I would upload raw photos straight onto my blog. Without even re-sizing or anything. Now, after reading thousands of blogs and writing hundreds of posts, I’ve started to get a feel for the type of photos I like.
So I edit them. So they’re like the type of photos I like. I wish I could edit other parts of my life like I can photos. It’d edit a smaller bottom and bigger lips. Winner.
When I upload my photos onto my computer, I sometimes adjust the levels, brightness, contrast and sharpness in iPhoto. Only a little tweak is needed with most photos.
But sometimes more drastic measures need to be taken. So I turn to PicMonkey.
PickMonkey is a free and easy web based photo editor.
All you do, is upload your photo, edit it, then download it to your computer again.
I have examples and everything. Woo.
How I edit photos.
Example 1.
The original photo:
In the below photo I clicked Auto Adjust to let PicMonkey do the work. This is an autocorrector that sometimes gets it very right, but sometimes can get it very wrong! In this case, it did a good job.
In the next photo, I increased the sharpness. This is good if you want to make parts of the photo clearer. It also can save you having to re-take photos if they’re slightly out of focus:
In this next photo, I reverted it back to the original, then I increased the brightness and applied one of the many filters. The one I like is one I use the most and is called Tranquil:
The main reason I use PicMonkey is when my photos look dull. I like photos to look bright, airy and crisp. My most used features on PicMonkey are:
- Auto Adjust.
- Adjusting exposure (shadows, highlights, contrast, brightness.
- Colour (saturation and temperature – especially for food photos).
- Sharpen.
- Filters (mainly Tranquil, Dusk and Intrepid).
Example 2.
The next example is a simple, quick edit. I wasn’t happy with the dullness on the photo, so adjusted the exposure to get the type of photo I was happy with.
You can easily change an okay photo into a pretty decent one..
Example 3.
This next example is a pretty terrible photo. The sun was being a dick that day.
It kept coming out then going behind a cloud. Ideally, I would have like to have taken these photos again, but it’s not always an option.
I managed to take the awful photo to something blog worthy. Though the outcome is a bit grainy, I do like it. Grainy is a bit bloggy, don’t you think?
Best thing to do is have a play around and see what type of features work for you. Not everyone likes the same type of editing and some people don’t like to edit photos at all. The important thing is to just have fun.
When you’ve got a photo that you’re proud of and can’t wait to publish on your blog, that’s when you know it’s right for you.
How do you edit your blog photos?
Very interesting post. I edit my photos too, I adjust the brightness, crop if it’s necessary. I even remove stuff from pictures, like an empty can from a field/street.
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I love having a nose at how people edit their photos so really enjoyed this. I’ve currently been playing around with Lightroom the last couple of weeks and have been seriously impressed, so impressed that I’m tempted to do the monthly subscription once my trial is up. Prior to this I was using Picasa for any small touch ups.
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All great tips picmonkey is superb tool it definitely helps. Your pictures are always great so I doubt editing them is too much of a chore Lucy x
Lucy recently posted…Carom Soho
Awh this is just what I needed. thank you.
Laura recently posted…Fun Friday
Great post. at the moment i’m mostly uploading pictures without editing them. With a bit more experience and time I’m hoping to make my photos look a bit better!
xx
sara mcavoy recently posted…My birthday weekend at West Midlands Safari Park!
Thank you for sharing !! I love picmonkey but never played around with it that much
CANDICE | BEAUTY CANDY LOVES
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These are really helpful tips, so thanks for sharing! <3 Photos can really make or break a blog.
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Um YUM the food looks fantastic haha! And I love PicMonkey, my favorite editing program!
Naomi recently posted…Visiting Vatican City and the St Peter’s Basilica
This is very helpful and great job in giving us detail information. Thanks. Have a lovely weekend.
Having great photos on a blog is very important. I like pic monkey sometimes!! I do most of my editing though in photoshop if I need, but I try and keep them as un-edited as possible!! Happy Friday xx
What a useful post! I usually use photoscape to edit my photos. Might try picmonkey one day!
Artika
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Nice post, for my phto I don’t edit them this is Hugo’s job!
Have a great week end
I use Picmonkey too! Such a great free editor and I love all their filters. xx
Amy recently posted…Big It Up with Phil Smith
I usually do my editing in Photoshop but I try my best to get the image right in camera by always shooting in full manual so I can get away with minimal processing.
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Ooh this is great, I use Pic Monkey too, and Pixlr which is like a basic online version of photoshop.
Most of the time though, I just upload pics from my phone. Got a new macbook now so this is gonna change!
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Love this, I def need to do this
check out my newest post
xx
Tyana
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I edited mine just a tad too but I love to see the sharpness and clearness in the photos and it makes it more appealing x
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This is definitely an interesting post, Corinne. I do adjust my pictures with iPhoto but only for Brightness and very rarely, I’ll hit Contrast once at most twice when I need the picture to stand out more. I never touch on anything else. I personally find there are a couple of blogs which did too much to their pictures that the colour of the product doesn’t even look the same anymore to the point it becomes misleading. I did stop following them. :-/
Shireen | Reflection of Sanity
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I try to avoid editing but as you said sometimes it’s necessary for achieving desired look.
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you’ve got great editing skills! go you x
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Very jealous of how good your edits are.
Lizzie Dripping
Color is one of the biggest things I edit in photos! I absolutely love picmonkey it’s a great (and easy to use) program!
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Wow, looks great. ^^
Have a nice weekend…
When I increase the sharpness it doesn’t go anywhere near as good as yours does wahhhhhh. You can do mine from now on 🙂
India | Touchscreens & Beautyqueens
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Hello pretty Corinne, how are you ?
I have not the time to work on my photos but your post is very interesting. The result is beautiful.
Kisses 🙂
Caro* recently posted…Sous la pluie !
Great post! I use PicMonkey too, I think it’s fab! Do you just use the free version? Lovely pictures x
emily x ❤ | emilyloula
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I’ve only just started using my OH’s SLR, so I’m really interested in making my pictures look beautiful. I’ve heard a few people use PicMonkey so I think I’ll have to check it out this weekend!
Your pictures always look gorgeous!
Emilie recently posted…Run or Dye – DYE!
I tend to edit my photos a lot (mainly exposure) to correct it. I take photos indoors in natural light and sometimes it’s just not enough.
Great post Corinne! xx
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Editing for me always depends on what camera I use. If I use my own one that doesn’t do Raw photos then I’m stuck with using Fotor. I don’t really like using editing software on line as I always think the quality diminishes. The best photos I have on my blog are ones where I’ve borrowed my brothers DSLR or where he’s taken the photos of me on it. I then let my brother do the editing of these and he uses Photoshop Lightroom. I love Lightroom as even me, who has no idea what they are doing, can edit them to look good. I think my only problem is picking the wrong photos to edit. What I think is good. my brother doesn’t and I trust his judgement better than my own. I’ll get there one day though…probably the day he stops being lovely to do it for me 😛 xxx
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Sometimes I use http://www.fotor.com/ 🙂
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Wow Corrine, thank you so much for sharing your tips and tricks on how you edit your photos. Very helpful.
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I use Picmonkey as well and depending on the color of the photo, I usually neutralize the color. And always increase the Clarity. I found Sharpen doesn’t really do anything for me. I also increase the brightness, highlight, shadow, and contrast 🙂 that’s about it.
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Good tips when you want to edit photos without a big hassle! Great job!
Paulina
shenanigan-ska.blogspot.com
You’ve got like, a PROPER camera 😉
I’m just using an LG G2 smartphone. I run all my pictures through my Cameras editing program by Google, I do try to get heaps of shots first so I can pick and choose the best one later.
I then use Fotor Stitch to stick them together sometimes.
♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.
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I do all my photo taking and editing on the iPhone! Nifty piece of technology that is! I loved what you did in Example 3. I have such a weakness for bokeh!!!
Also, I’m headed to the UK in summer. Is York very far from London? Shall we meet?
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I try to make time to edit my photos, however sometimes it just takes too long.
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Your pictures look great! I don’t think I’ve ever uploaded any photos to my blog without adjusting them. I use Adobe lightroom – which is awesome for bulk editing! I also use Canva to great my blogpost title image. Never used pic monkey before but it looks awesome!
Greasy?! I meant create 🙂
I love photo editing! I also use PicMonkey, and sometimes I use ipiccy if I want to make myself look a bit more tanned (eeek did I just admit that?). I downloaded aviary on my phone the other day which is great for doing black and white with one other colour, e.g. a red bus in a black and white street.
Ash | Liakada Travel
This was really interesting, its nice to see the shots before and be able to know other bloggers do make tweaks to their pictures before they go live. I used iphoto for a while but like you I’ve just started to get a feel for a sort of ‘style’ for my photos and now I’ve moved to photoshop.
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I’d love to get back into photoshop. I used to swear by it in my teens.
Picmonkey is my friend too. I usually do basic edit (rotate, autocorrect) in Windows picture editor (or whatever it’s called), then resize and do any additional edits in picmonkey. The resize in the windows version doesn’t actually compress or resize correctly I’ve found!
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Ahh! Is there an export option? That’s how I resize in iPhoto!
I love PicMonkey and it’s all I ever use too. However I don’t change the sharpness or add filters – I’ll have to experiment a little more
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Seems you have god gifted skill of editing. Really wonderful!
Really interesting post and so useful to have the before/after photos 🙂 I use photoshop but when trying to edit hundreds of photos show quick it can be so time consuming so I may look into PicMonkey 🙂 xxxx
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Oh I’m not surprised! Photo shop is quite complicated!
Some awesome tips here! I use fotor and pretty much use that for the same things. I love bright photos.
Bee | QueenBeady.com
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Bright is best ❤️
I also use picmonkey!! I never do before and after thou to check on the improvement!! I def need to do that!
Great post!!
xx
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Yeah it’s a great way to see the difference!